History
In 1971, some English yachtsman began talking about the possibility of an around the world race. It must have seemed more like an impossibility at the time.
There was a recent bad precedent: Only one of the eight entrants in the Golden Globe race of 1968-69 had finished and one had committed suicide. That sort of track record didn't exactly lure sponsors.
As it happened, though, the Royal Naval Sailing Association (RNSA) was interested. The RNSA viewed ocean racing as a good way to teach teamwork to its sailors. The association announced its support of the proposed race in April of 1972.
That endorsement helped bring in a sponsor, Whitbread PLC, one of England's oldest and wealthiest corporations. The Whitbread Round The World Race had been created.
1973-74
The first race began on September 8, 1973, at Portsmouth Naval Base (thanks to the RNSA). Seventeen boats with a total of 167 crew entered. One of them, Keewaydin of Sweden, started two weeks late and withdrew after reaching the Canary Islands.
There were four legs in the race: Portsmouth to Cape Town, Cape Town to Sydney, Sydney to Rio de Janiero, and Rio de Janiero back to Portsmouth. Points were awarded for a boat's performance in each leg and, because many different types of yachts were entered, a handicap system was used.
Two men were lost overboard in the Southern Ocean. One of them was Dominique Guillet, co-skipper of Export 33, which then withdrew from the race. On the third leg, Bernie Hocking was lost overboard from GBII.
Nevertheless, GBII, skippered by Chay Blyth, finished first in 144 days, a record for circumnavigation at the time. Although she won three of the four legs, GBII was ranked only sixth on corrected time. Sayula II, which finished fourth overall, was the first winner of the Whitbread Trophy for best corrected time.
1977-78
The second Whitbread race began in 1977 with 15 entrants from 12 different countries. Auckland, New Zealand, replaced Sydney as the end of the second leg.
Flyer, skippered by Cornelius van Rietschoten of the Netherlands, was nearly driven onto the rocks by a violent storm just short of the finish. But van Rietschoten managed to avoid near disaster to come in fifth overall, winning the Whitbread Trophy by 58 hours on corrected time. Remarkably, all 15 starters finished the race.
1981-82
There were 29 entries in the 1981-82 race, but that didn't change the outcome. Van Rietschoten won again in a brand-new boat, also named Flyer. The Dutch skipper suffered a heart attack on the second leg, but he was back in control after a few days of convalescence. Flyer won all four legs and was the first boat back to Portsmouth, winning on elapsed time as well as corrected time and breaking the old around the world record by 14 days.
For tactical and strategic reasons, Van Rietschoten had been reluctant to give his position throughout the race. By the final leg, he didn't do it all and the other skippers followed suit. It was almost impossible for the promoters to stir any on-shore interest in a race in which the positions of all the competitors were unknown.
1985-86
As a result, all the boats in the 1985-86 race were required to carry radio beacons so they could be tracked continuously. Also, the course was changed for the second time. In 1981-82, Rio de Janeiro had been replaced by Mar del Plata, Argentina, as the end of the third leg. In the aftermath of the Falklands war between Great Britain and Argentina, Mar del Plata was now replaced by Punta del Este, Uruguay.
There were two races within the 1985-86 Whitbread. Seven so-called "maxi yachts" contended for elapsed time honors, while the other eight entries were in a race for corrected time.
UBS Switzerland, skippered by Pierre Fehlmann had the best elapsed time, followed closely by Lion New Zealand and Drum, a British boat owned by rock star Simon Le Bon of Duran Duran. A French yacht, L'Esprit d'Equipe, finished eighth overall, behind all of the maxi yachts, but was first on corrected time.
1989-90
The course was altered considerably for the 1989-90 race. It began and ended at Southampton rather than Portsmouth, and the number of legs was increased from four to six. The organizers agreed to remove Cape Town from the itinerary because of the British government's anti-apartheid stand.
As finally mapped out, the course looked like this: Southampton to Punta del Este, Punta del Este to Fremantle, Australia; Fremantle to Auckland, New Zealand; Auckland to Punta del Este, Punta del Este to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida; Ft. Lauderdale to Southampton. That increased the distance from 27,000 to 32,000 nautical miles.
The handicapping system was abandoned. Although prize money was established for boats in various classes, where was to be just one winner: the boat the crossed the finish line first.
That winner was Steinlager 2, skippered by Peter Blake of New Zealand, who had entered every previous Whitbread race. Steinlager 2 won every leg, but the finish was remarkably close. Grant Dalton's Fisher finished just 36 minutes behind.
The sixth-place finisher was Maiden, a 58-foot sloop with an all-woman crew, skippered by Tracy Edwards of England.
1993-94
Organizers decided that the race needed its very own class of boat. The result was the Whitbread 60, or W60, designed to be fast, strong enough to withstand the rigors of an around-the-world voyage, and still considerably less expensive than the maxi yachts that had come to dominate the race. At the time, a W60 could be built for somewhere between $3 and $5 million, while a maxi cost about twice as much.
There were two classes in the 1993-94 race, for W60s and for the maxis. Lawrie Smith of Great Britain had the unique experience of serving as skipper of each class. His maxi yacht, Fortuna, lost her mast on the first leg. He then took over the W60 Intrum Justitia after her Swedish skipper was injured.
The race turned into a duel between two New Zealand skippers, Grant Dalton in the maxi New Zealand Endeavour and Ross Field in the combined Japan-New Zealand entry, Yamaha, a W60. But another New Zealander, Chris Dickson, in command of Japan's Tokio, was in the early running. The three New Zealanders combined for victories on five of the six legs.
Dalton edged Dickson by a scant three hours to win the first leg. Smith guided Intrum Justitia to a win on the second leg, demonstrating that the new W60 could show surprising speed. The boat set a new one-day record of 425 nautical miles, averaging 17.75 an hour, during that leg.
The third leg came down to a neck-and-neck finish between Dalton and Dickson. Both New Zealanders wanted to reach Auckland first, to be cheered by the inevitable crowd of countrymen. They entered the harbor almost simultaneously, with Dickson holding a very slight lead. But Dalton surged ahead to win the leg.
Smith and Intrum Justitia led for most of the fourth leg, but then stalled in a calm. Dalton ended up winning by just five minutes.
The relatively short leg from Punta del Este to Ft. Lauderdale turned out to be the roughest on the boats. Struggling against powerful headwinds, three boats, including New Zealand Endeavour, encountered delamination problems and Chris Dickson's Tokio was dismasted. Ross Field in Yamaha won the leg.
After an emergency repair job, Tokio finished the fifth leg and had a new mast in place for the final leg. She was the first boat to finish, giving her the victory in the W60 class. New Zealand Endeavour, also patched up, was the overall and maxi class winner.
1997-98
A lot of changes were made for the 1997-98 race. Volvo came aboard as a sponsor and the official name became the Whitbread Race for the Volvo Trophy. The era of the maxi-yacht ended, as only W60s were accepted. The number of legs was increased from six to nine, partly to afford more opportunities for worldwide media coverage.
Another reason for the added legs was that the race was based entirely on a point system, rather than on elapsed time, with points awarded for each leg. Having more legs made a tie less likely to occur.
The legs were: Southampton to Cape Town; Cape Town to Fremantle; Fremantle to Sydney; Sydney to Auckland; Auckland to Sao Sebastiao, Brazil; Sao Sebastiao to Ft. Lauderdale; Ft. Lauderdale to Baltimore, Maryland; Baltimore to La Rochelle, France; and La Rochelle to Southampton.
Because only W60s were allowed to enter, there were just ten boats in the race, and five of the skippers had never been in the Whitbread before. One of them was Paul Cayard of the United States, in command of the Swedish boat EF Language.
Cayard surprised just about everyone when he won the first leg by 20 hours over Whitbread veteran Grant Dalton and his Merit Cup. He dropped back to fifth on the second leg, which was won by Gunnar Krantz and Swedish Match but won the third leg in a remarkable finish that saw the first six finishers cross the line within an 11-minute span. EF Language edged Merit Cup by five minutes and eight seconds.
Merit Cup took the fourth leg and Cayard came in fourth but still held on to the overall lead. He extended that lead by winning the fifth leg easily, finishing about 500 nautical miles ahead of his closest pursuer. That leg was hard on some of the other boats. Three of them were dismasted and needed major repairs in South America.
A second-place finish on the sixth leg, an hour behind Lawrie Smith's Silk Cut, virtually assured Cayard of victory. "I guess EF Language has the whole thing in the bag now, barring accidents," Dalton told the media in Fort Lauderdale. "We are now chasing for second and third position overall."
Cayard solidified his overall lead by finishing third on the short leg to Baltimore, behind Brunel Sunergy and Swedish Match.
Swedish Match still had a theoretical chance to win, but that chance disappeared on the eighth leg, where neither boat did well. What mattered was that Cayard brought EF Language in sixth, just ahead of Swedish Match.
The final leg, just 450 nautical miles in length, was a horse race between Merit Cup and EF Language. Merit Cup won by minutes, but the second-place finish gave EF Language the Volvo Trophy. Merit Cup finished second overall.
2001-02
That was the last Whitbread race. Volvo took over full sponsorship and the 2001-02 edition was called the Volvo Ocean Race. The course changed once again. A Swedish company, Volvo added Gothenburg, Sweden, as a stop, and Kiel, Germany, became the finish. This was the first time that the race didn't finish back at its starting point in England.
In addition, Rio de Janeiro replaced Sao Sebastiao as the South American stopover and Miami replaced Fort Lauderdale as North American stop. The race was kept to nine legs by eliminating the stopover in Fremantle. The adjusted route looked like this: Southampton to Cape Town; Cape Town to Sydney; Sydney to Hobart to Auckland; Auckland to Rio de Janeiro; Rio de Janeiro to Miami; Miami to Baltimore; Baltimore to La Rochelle, France; La Rochelle to Gothenburg; and Gothenburg to Kiel.
Only eight boats started the race in September of 2001. Neal McDonald of Great Britain was aboard a Swedish entry, ASSA ABLOY, and his American wife, Lisa McDonald, was skipper of Amer Sports Too, which had an all-female crew.
The other American entry, Amer Sports One, was skippered by Grant Dalton of New Zealand, while John Kostecki of the U. S. served as skipper of a German boat, Illbruck Challenge.
Kostecki won the first leg by about three hours over Dalton. Because of a serious error in navigation, Roy Heiner was fired by the ASSA ABLOY syndicate and Neal McDonald replaced him as skipper.
Illbruck Challenge sprang a leak early in the second leg. The crew finally found and repaired and then spent several hours bailing out the flooded forward compartment. Nevertheless, Kostecki brought her home to another close victory, barely nipping Team SEB of Sweden.
ASSA ABLOY led most of the third leg and won it, with Amer Sports One taking second and Team Tyco of Bermuda finishing third. Illbruck Challenge dropped back to fourth place but held on to the overall lead and then won the fourth leg to extend the lead.
But ASSA ABLOY beat Illbruck Challenge on the fifth leg to make it close. After Leg 6, which was won by Team News Corp of Australia, the lead was down to just seven points. Kostecki responded by pushing his boat to a new record, 484 nautical miles in 24 hours, while winning the seventh leg, even though several crew members came down with flu.
The finish of the eighth leg was the closest in the history of the race, as the first five boats finished in a span of six minutes and 50 seconds. ASSA ABLOY was the winner and now trailed by only four points. She could win by finishing five or more places better than Illbruck Challenge on the final leg.
But it didn't happen. Illbruck Challenge finished second to Djuice Dragons of Norway while ASSA ABLOY was fourth.
2005-06
More major changes were made for the second Volvo Ocean Race. A new type of boat, known as the Volvo Open 70, replaced the W60. The course was again altered considerably. Vigo, Spain, became the start and finish, but Southampton remained on the itinerary as the finish of Leg 7. A new, very short leg, was added, just 400 miles from Baltimore/Annapolis to New York City.
New wrinkles were added to the scoring system. In the 2001-02 race, points were awarded on each leg, with the winner getting a number of points equal to the number of boats that started the race and each succeediing finisher getting one less point. Since eight boats started that race, victory on a leg was worth 8 points, second place 7 points, and so on down the line.
That system remained intact for the 2005-06 race (except winning a leg is worth only 7 points, because only seven boats started the race). But two others ways of scoring points were added. Seven in-port races were set up at various stops along the way. These short races were worth half as much as a leg: 3 1/2 points for first place, 3 points for second, and so on. "Scoring gates" were also established on six legs of the course, with the scoring the same as for the in-port races: The first boat through a gate gets 3 1/2 points.
Although the race proper started on November 12, 2005, the first in-port race was staged a week earlier, in Sanxenxo, Spain. The Ericsson Racing Team of Sweden won that event, but two Dutch entries, ABN AMRO ONE and ABN AMRO TWO, then took over. ABN AMRO ONE was first through the scoring gate on the leg and the first to reach Cape Town, with ABN AMRO TWO placing second. Both of the boats broke the old 24-hour record on the leg, with ABN AMRO ONE covering 546 nautical miles, 9 more than ABN AMRO TWO.
There were two scoring gates on the second leg. The two Dutch boats were first and second at both gates and at the end of the leg, in Melbourne. ABN AMRO ONE also won the in-port race, where ABN AMRO TWO was only sixth after being penalized for crossing the start line early.
ABN AMRO ONE also led for most of Leg 3, from Melbourne to Wellington, New Zealand. But, when the winds lightened, movistar of Spain began to gain and snatched victory by nine seconds, the closest marging ever in the race's history. ABN AMRO TWO finished fifth after severe damage to her mainsail and the loss of a crew member to injury.
Leg 4 went around Cape Horn to Rio de Janeiro. ABN AMRO ONE was first through the scoring gate at the cape itself and first into Rio. The Disney-sponsored Pirates of the Caribbean finished second at both locations, while ABN AMRO TWO was fourth through the gate and third to reach Rio.
ABN AMRO ONE won the in-port race at Rio de Janeiro, for a commanding total of 49 points. ABN AMRO TWO had 35 points, Pirates of the Caribbean 30.5, movistar 28.0, Brasil 1 26.5, Ericsson Racing Team 21.0, and Brunel just 11.5.
The fifth leg began on April 2. The boats are due in Baltimore/Annapolis on or before April 17.
